Case: Kemper 2011

THE STORY

Rarely does a business fail, while its name retains enough positive equity to attract an acquirer. Kemper, a once solid, nationally-known US commercial insurer ran into financial difficulties during 2002 (according to Wikipedia) after new management took it into new areas of business which performed poorly. As a mutual company, it was limited in its ability to raise new capital and eventually failed to do so. The company stopped writing new policies and entered runoff, and in 2002 Unitrin (a 1990 spin-out from the breakup of Teledyne) bought Kemper's personal insurance businesses (life, home, auto) for which it leased the Kemper name.

Having no love for "Unitrin," a cold and artificial construction, Unitrin's leaders began to see in "Kemper" a stronger brand platform for the kind of company they increasingly envisioned  no longer a holding company, now a unified insurance provider, and a powerbrand. Said CEO Donald Southwell, "Since the Kemper acquisition, we have looked for opportunities to leverage the value of the Kemper brand throughout our organization. When we had the opportunity to purchase the name outright in mid-2010, we jumped on it. The Kemper name fits who we have become as a company. It allows us to bring together all of our approximately 7,000 employees under one banner.

For over a year, Unitrin worked with Lippincott consultants to explore, plan, design and stage its rebranding. Lippincott's design team provided a strongly-colored symbol-dominant logo  a folded-plane yellow K monogram, plus an authoritative all-caps wordmark. The accompanying visual system is based on a yellow/gray/red palette, toned yellow graphic forms that echo the K symbol, and the Calibri type family.

Brand architecture is at present Mixed, in that Unitrin-branded units temporarily retain their Unitrin signatures endorsed only verbally as Kemper companies, while Kemper-unit signatures incorporate the new symbol. But a relatively rapid transition (another year?) to monolithic Kemper signatures is planned, backed by umbrella brand advertising. (Only one unit had to make an immediate name change; the Kemper unit became Kemper Preferred.)

Launch communications focused on the August 25 NYSE opening bell ceremony, a full-page WSJ ad and a feature article in the (home-town) Chicago Tribune. More importantly, sustained advertising will mark the shift from quiet holding company to a more aggressive brand-driven insurance provider.

We view our rebranding as an investment in the company, said Dennis Vigneau, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Over time we expect to see benefits in terms of overall growth and increased shareholder returns. Adds Diana Hickert-Hill, newly appointed VP IR and CI, "To give voice to our brand is inspirational."